The Blurb:
Christian is a Solution-Focused hypnotherapist. Solution Focused Hypnotherapy combines a cutting-edge method of psychotherapy called Solution Focused Brief Therapy, with Clinical Hypnotherapy to create a powerful modern technique that can help people transform their lives quickly and effectively.
By focusing on the present and moving forward positively, it aims to achieve major changes and improvements through gaining control of your thoughts, feelings and behaviour. This can help in the treatment of depression, anxiety and specific phobias such as fear of flying and driving. It also helps increase confidence and can be an effective tool for performance enhancement, along with more concrete challenges such as quitting or cutting down on smoking or drinking.
Based at Anamaya, a tranquil wellness centre in a cobbled mews in Kensington, the sessions are carried out in calm, contemporary treatment rooms.
The Process:
Christian begins by explaining the brain as a complex pattern matching organism, then explaining its reward system, along with the concept of an intellectual brain versus another reptilian, impulsive, emotional amygdala part of the brain. It’s the latter, amygdala that generates a vicious cycle of anxiety, impulsive behaviour, stress, depression, anger and poor decisions. All of which self-perpetuate and conspire to keep you in a negative, destructive and ineffective state of mind.
He goes on to discuss your aims, concerns and motivations. He also encourages you to shift into a reward-centric frame of mind by asking you to bring to mind several positive things that have happened over the past week before he begins the hypnotism proper. The session opens with you rating your current confidence and happiness levels out of 10, as a gauge to compare and track progress over the coming weeks.
Once you’re lying down, Christian plays a background soundtrack that recurs on his CD, I’m guessing this is to trigger the thought processes from the session when you listen to it at home. He embarks on a 30 or 40 minute narrative, similar in part to guided meditation, but subliminally influencing you to feel capable of whatever you’re trying to achieve. He encourages the mind to think more laterally and acknowledge the vast array of resources and possibilities available to it. An example of this lateral suggestion is talking about souls and soles, and bear and bare once you’re quite deep under in a trance-like state.
Most significantly, he instils that your subconscious is your best friend. By tapping into this, you connect with what you really want from life, and what you really want to be doing. He doesn’t control your mind, but influences and empowers you to take control of your thoughts, feelings, and decisions.
Over the course of several sessions I noticed a huge improvement in my general self-discipline and focus. I felt happier and more confident. I was behaving and performing better in almost every area of my life; everything became easier without internal self-sabotaging thought patterns.
Directly after each session I noticed a renewed focus, and a sense of mindfulness. I actively wanted to do things that were in my interest, as opposed to seeing each situation as a laborious battle between the should or ought of willpower, versus the want and ease of impulse.
As the sessions work by encouraging and empowering your own subconscious to reclaim control and steer you where it wants to go, I think it would be futile to see Christian about something you didn’t genuinely want to change. If you think you ought to want something, but don’t genuinely feel it’s right for you deep-down, I’m not sure the method could be effective.
As for the CD to play at home, rather than seeing time out listening to it as a chore, as I’d expected, I came to really look forward to playing it before bed. I woke up feeling more positive and able and really missed it on days I’d forgotten. You can just put it on and go straight to sleep, or actively listen, or just think about anything that drifts through your mind. There’s no impetus to actually listen to what’s said, your job ends at hitting play. Christian also stressed that you won’t need to listen to it indefinitely, the changes that come about during the sessions become your new normal, and after a while, second-nature.
The Result:
Utterly transformative. I found I stopped doing things I didn’t really want to be doing, I found it easier to say no to temptation, I slept better, organised my time better, and lived far more healthily. The sessions and CD impart a sort of inner stability and strength to direct your life where you want it to go. This positive transformation continues months after your final session, with many people going on to change in areas they may not have even realised they wanted to address.
Christian’s technique puts you in touch with the person you really want to be on a deeper level, and gives you the power to live the way you genuinely want to. When I was listening to the CD regularly, I felt a disinclination to do anything that wasn’t in my interest. It became easy to just get on with things I’d been putting off and live more effectively, with less effort, less resistance, and less internal conflict. No small task for me, I can tell you.
